ed me, and thanked Heaven that one so young in his house felt
as a protestant child should feel in an epoch of such calamity.

It was then late in the afternoon, towards the gloaming, and having
partaken of some refreshment, my father took the big Bible from the
press-head, and, after a prayer uttered in great heaviness of spirit, he
read a portion of the Revelations, concerning the vials and the woes,
expounding the same like a preacher; and we were all filled with
anxieties and terrors; some of the younger members trembled with the
thought that the last day was surely at hand.

Next morning a sough and rumour of that solemn venting of Christian
indignation which had been manifested at Edinburgh, having reached our
country-side, and the neighbours hearing of my father's return, many of
them came at night to our house to hear the news; and it was a meeting
that none present thereat could ever after forget:--well do I mind
everything as if it had happened but yestreen. I was sitting on a laigh
stool at the fireside, between the chumley-lug and the gown-tail of old
Nanse Snoddie, my mother's aunty, a godly woman, that in her eild we
took care of; and as young and old came in, the salutation was in
silence, as of guests coming to a burial.

The first was Ebenezer Muir, an aged man, whose grandson stood many a
blast in the persecution of the latter days, both with the Blackcuffs
and the bloody dragoons of the remorseless Graham of Claver. He was bent
with the burden of time, and leaning on his staff, and his long white
hair hung down from aneath his broad blue bonnet. He was one whom my
grandfather held in great respect for the sincerity of his principles
and the discretion of his judgment, and among all his neighbours, and
nowhere more than in our house, was he considered a most patriarchal
character.

"Come awa, Ebenezer," said my father, "I'm blithe and I'm sorrowful to
see you. This night we may be spar't to speak in peace of the things
that pertain unto salvation; but the day and the hour is not far off,
when the flock of Christ shall be scattered and driven from the pastures
of their Divine Master."

To these words of affliction Ebenezer Muir made no response, but went
straight to the fireside, facing Nanse Snoddie, and sat down without
speaking; and my father, then observing John Fullarton of Dykedivots
coming in, stretched out his hand, and took hold of his, and drew him to
sit down by his side.

They had bee